To game or not to game? That is the question.

Huh?

Ok, let me backtrack a little. Edward Castronova, a Shakespeare buff and author of "Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games" intends to make an MMO based on the English bard's work, "Richard III". Yep, we're talking about an Elizabethan playground dribbled with Shakespearean texts that give you weapon and armor boosts.

No kidding. Players get to collect snippets from Shakespeare's plays, present those to NPCs, and in turn, they'll be rewarded by armor and weapon upgrades.

So, in order to get that much-coveted mana-draining and 1500 damage-inflicting fire sword, you have to be in the lookout for "Oh Romeo, my Romeo, wherefore art thou my Romeo...", or something like that. It's set in a "Richard III" environment, meaning there's going to be historical and socio-political stuffies, among of which is the infamous "War of the Roses". Interesting, eh?

So yeah, it's a fusion of academics and fun, and Castronova's even going to use it as a "social-science experiment". In fact, he's even backed up by the academe, who thinks that this is a good way to introduce Shakespeare to most students. He was even granted a whopping $240,000 donation from the MacArthur Foundation. So, what's the game called? Arden: The World of Shakespeare. It seems that you can't be any more straightforward than that.

Details on its projected release are still fuzzy, but we'll sure let you know once we get our hands on more info. We do wish Mr. Castronova good luck for planning such a wonderful endeavor, and hopefully his hard work will pay off.